Earle C. Clements

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Earle Chester Clements (October 22, 1896 – March 12, 1985) served as a U.S. Representative, Governor and U.S. Senator for the state of Kentucky. He served as Senate Majority Whip when Lyndon Johnson was Senate Majority Leader.

[edit] Early life & career

Clements was born in Morganfield, Kentucky. He studied at the University of Kentucky and then served in World War I as a captain teaching military science. He then worked in oil fields in Texas, later returning to Kentucky to farm and coach football. He also served as a deputy sheriff before being elected Union County sheriff in his own right, serving 1922-1926. Clements was then elected and served as county clerk (1926-1934) and county judge (1934-1942).

In 1935 Clements refused to chair the campaign of Happy Chandler for Governor of Kentucky and the resulting split was the source of factionalism within the Kentucky Democratic Party for decades.

In 1941 Clements was elected to the Kentucky Senate; he served as majority leader in 1944.

Clements was then elected to and served two terms in the United States House of Representatives, 1945-1948.

[edit] Governor

In 1947 Clements defeated the Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky Harry Lee Waterfield in the Democratic primary for Governor of Kentucky. Waterfield was a staunch ally of Happy Chandler. Clements then defeated Republican nominee Eldon S. Dummit by 387,795 votes to 287,756 and won a term as Governor of Kentucky.

As governor Clements made the state parks and state roads high priorities. While Clements was governor, New York was the only state that spent more on its park system and Texas was the only state that spent more on its roads. Kentucky's unusually widespread system of four lane divided highways is in part a legacy of Clements' governorship. Clements also oversaw the construction of the Kentucky Exposition Center and Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. The Legislative Research Commission was founded while Clements was governor, with Clements' support. Clements also founded and established the Kentucky State Police, in part to replace the semi-corrupt highway patrol. Clements also reorganized insurance regulation in the state and saw to it that poor school districts received additional funding.

Clements failed to convince the Kentucky General Assembly to end segregation in Kentucky's graduate and professional schools, regulate strip mining and establish statewide pension and civil service programs. However, years later in 1959 Clements saw to it that a worthy successor, Bert T. Combs, won the office over Happy Chandler's lieutenant governor and hand-picked successor, Harry Lee Waterfield. Combs and Combs' hand-picked successor, Edward T. Breathitt, fulfilled more of Clements' progressive legacy as they desegregated all public schools at all levels in addition to all places of public accommodation. Combs also established a state civil service program that remains in place as of 2005.

In 1950, before his term as governor was over, Clements resigned to seek a seat in the United States Senate. Clements' achievements in his single, truncated term as governor rank among the most impressive of any in the history of the state. He was succeeded as governor by his Democratic lieutenant governor, Lawrence Wetherby, who won a full term as governor in his own right in the 1951 election.

[edit] Senator

Clements won the Senate election over Charles I. Dawson, 300,276 votes to 256,856. He quickly became the Democratic whip under Lyndon Johnson. Johnson and Clements were extraordinarily effective in leading their party in the Senate.

In 1956 when Clements' Senate seat was up for election, Clements' factional enemy Happy Chandler was serving a second, non-consecutive term as Governor of Kentucky. Chandler made sure the Democratic Party denied Clements substantial assistance in his re-election bid^{[citation needed]}. As a result, Clements lost his Senate seat to Republican Thruston B. Morton. Clements returned the favor, seeing to it that his faction of the party successfully supported Bert T. Combs for governor at the end of Chandler's second term in 1959, denying the governor's mansion to Chandler's lieutenant governor and hand-picked successor, Harry Lee Waterfield^{[citation needed]}. The Clements-Chandler factionalism continued on for many years within the party.

From 1957 through 1959 Clements continued to work side by side with Lyndon Johnson as head of the U. S. Democratic Re-election Committee. In 1959 and 1960 Clements served as state highway commissioner under Governor Bert T. Combs. Clements then returned to Washington as a lobbyist and as an executive with the American Tobacco Institute.

In 1981 Clements retired to his hometown of Morganfield, Kentucky, where he died in 1985. He is buried at the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Morganfield, Kentucky.

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